Saturday, February 25, 2006

Santiera CultThis is in tandem with another post I am doing at xanga.

On April 12, 1989, the pluralist attempt to skirt that dificult questionlost all credibility and came face-to-face with the ugliness of pagan society.The front-page headlines of every major paper reported that authorities had dugup a number of mutilated hu- man corpses, the vicious results of the religiousritual practiced by a Mexican offshoot of the Santeria culti satanic sacrifices.The problem posed to Dr. Spykman is not simply a matter of hypo- thetical andtritling intellectual games. Real Satanists murder real people in realsubservience to their real religious choices. Now then, should the civilmagistrate respect this religious ritual of Santeria? Or should he rather ingood (but morally prejudiced) conscience follow Christian values in giving acivil response to satanic sacri.tlce

And then Bahnsen finishes the argument with one hammer blow:

The libertarian-tainted spirit of our age tempts us toward an all-too-easy “answer” to this problem. Without due reflection we are tempted to reply that, because atl faith-commitments must be equally protected, the pluralist position could adjust the pun- ishment and restraint of satanists who are destroying the lives and liberty of those who do not share their particular ftith-commit- ment. That is, there is an implicit restriction in the pluralist equal-protection clause: viz., one may not use his own religiow liberty so as to infinge upon or impede the practice of another's religious libetiy. This reply does not an.wer the original question, howeveq it simply shifts the question to a more basic issue. Given the pluralist commitment to the equal-protection of all ftith-commitments, would he not need equally to protect those fh.iths which do not honor the restriction which was just enunciated here? Some religions do, and some religions do not. Apparently, the Santeria faith does not. Would the pluralist implicitly impose his Christian religious con- victions on the followers of Santeria by requiring them to dishonor their own religious convictions about human sacritlce and/or to dishonor their rejection of the restriction just stated? If he would, b too is “prejudiced.” If he would not, his position is morally bankrupt.